Tincage Reviews

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Ugh.... it ... was... so.... BORING.

[1/10 · 22 May 2006]

Standing in line for any of the Star Wars prequels, a car driving by might yell; "Get a life!", as I jokingly yelled out of the car at the sting of protesters in front of where we tried to see The DaVinci Code. See, in line for Star Wars, we were gathered in common appreciation, not common disdain or ignorance. There have been many movies I find offensive, but no group ever is boycotting them, or causing some controversy... everything offends someone, and I was offended by The DaVinci Code myself, for being BORING. We got to the box office, and it was sold out, every screen that it was on in our suburban mega-super-whatever plex, plus the IMAX attached and lost in some small corner of this small city of a theater. Just as we were leaving the parking lot to find a different theater, the protesters were leaving... I said to one; "Don't leave now, it's sold out..." "That's why we're leaving." The other theater had no protesters, and no crowd... The friend I went with is from a devout Catholic family… and his mother loved the book. He saw nothing to be spiritually offended by… probably because it was a movie… the waste is that people allowed themselves to get upset by such a bad movie. I haven't read the book, for all I know the filmmakers may have thought the story was a pile of crud. Take all the Jesus you want, and religion out of the movie, and it's still a pile of crud… Why? Two hours of ruminative reaction shots, about some secrets that everyone nods because every character knew it already… and it was all kicked off by a murder where you'd think there might have been a security camera. Probably wouldn't have thought of that, if it hadn't been so long.

Spartan (2004)

Looks like everyone else here thinks this is good.

[2/10 · 15 August 2005]

I love Mamet too. But the ending of this movie made the whole thing cynical, and loveless. Hit preview button. What? I have to type 10 lines about a movie that already wasn't worth my time. I was all for this thing, really into it, and boom! It craps out with a nothing ending. I read positive feedback for this movie and it's complimenting the ending. The must be talking about the climax. The climax is great. It's Fabulous. The ENDING, epilogue, whatever you want to call it, whatever it is for about 90 seconds before the credits roll... That KILLED this movie... for me at least. I can't watch a film this smart, and have a WTF moment right as the credits are about to roll. I just can't. Sorry.

Metro (1997)

From Bizzaro World.

[8/10 · 24 July 2005]

Remember the scenes in Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and Last Action Hero that show movies in their world... like the Stallone Terminator 2 poster? Metro is from one of those universe's... not ours. A universe where Thomas Carter is Michael Bay, and Eddie Murphy was the star of movies just like Die Hard and The Fifth Element. This movie is probably so sorely underrated, primarily for the reason that... It's not funny. Not one damn bit. It's a pretty damn good action movie that dies if you have Eddie typecast as Axel Foley pooped out of Gumby. OK, sure, there are some story clichés in the first act that may induce vomiting... but you'll survive. There's a San Fransisco car chase involving a trolley that does pale to the chase in The Rock, which came out 8 months before this movie... But it didn't in Bizzaro world! In Bizzaro world though it was fully realized that this was part of a series of San Fransisco cop movies including Basic Instinct featuring Denis Arndt as the same boss in each movie. This is what movies from alternate dimensions are like. This, and Ben Affleck movies, he doesn't seem real either (It's not that I'm crazy, it's that he was Shannon Hamilton in Mallrats.)

Bush's Brain (2004)

Fahren-Lite 3 out of 10

[3/10 · 6 July 2005]

THIS OPINION IS NOT ABOUT POLITICS, BUT DOCUMENTARY FILMCRAFT I came out of this film with a more favorable impression of Karl Rove. This is such an unambitious smear job, that I actually found reason to NOT think he's slime. I, you, anyone has enough people that we've ticked off over the years that someone could put together a wedding video quality parade of talking heads to site what a prick we've been over the years. Most of the interviews are with people who Rove beat in elections. Sure, he plays dirty, but I'm so cynical about politics, that I (and probably many other Americans) think they ALL play dirty.

This film should have been a hard hitting piece of journalism, but it never dug below the surface of anything. Maybe the book is, but the film is empty film-making. Oddly enough, it may be Karl Rove who did the most to empty out the potential of this film with his letter to the filmmakers which they show at the end. It denies us the Mike Wallace type of putting to task that these type of films need.

They continually beat the drum of Karl Rove being a virtual co-president of the country. If all you know about politics comes from the TV show THE WEST WING, then that is always the position of the campaign chief / chief-of-staff. The President, any President is the Groom at the wedding, they're talking about the best man. Big deal.

Pen & Teller's BULL$H!T, and Jon Stewart's Daily Show are better journalism.

Final Fantasy X (2001 Video Game)

The best yet!

[10/10 · 26 December 2001]

Dear Squaresoft,

Storywise this just might be the finest FF ever, so answer your fans this tough question; how could you make a movie that bad?

This game has everything your movie needed to have, so...

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

You know what ten has... that's what it has going for it. The look the feel, the characters, the magic the summoned creatures, the music, the whole package!

Thank you for the beautiful game, it's a shame there wasn't a big-screen movie version of this story... for we'll never get to see it in a theatre, and you won't make the bank you could have.

So one request....

Please compile the story segments onto a DVD that we don't have to play thru, just that we can sit back and watch and remember a great game through!

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

A man I put on a pedestal fell flat on his face.

[8/10 · 30 June 2001]

The "loyal to the company" father is quick to condemn his own companies product?

Oceans freezing don't crush everything under them?

A day is a definable quantity of space-time?

Hundreds of people who hate robots WANT to let them leave?

Linear machine descendants of the androids, have had no data passed onto them by prior computers?

You can make love to a robot but you can't put food into its mouth (pool water being an exception)?

Machines with binocular vision can't judge distance (Moon: balloon or real)?

More people are sure to spot more things...

Am I being picky, probably, but when you're bored, your mind tends to wonder.

Driven (2001)

W/O Estella Warren It would be WORTHLESS.

[1/10 · 1 May 2001]

This movie tried pointlessly and soullessly to make the point that over-testosteroned men DO CRY. So What, they were crying over a lack of a script essentially. Most of the movie in between REALLY COOL race sequences wasted our time by begging us to care for half dimensional, and more importantly MEAN SPIRITED characters.

3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)

43 min. into it we walked out.

[1/10 · 26 February 2001]

After spending time with my family, my greatest joy on this earth is going to the movies. Since I was two years old and my parents took me to see Star Wars, I've been in love with the movie experience. I love the high I get from seeing a great movie on the biggest screen I can, and I'm no stranger to repeat viewings, Titanic 14 times (most taking my dad to see it), SWTPM, 21 times (trying to pull off topping a friend who had seen Braveheart 38 times... I've braved the bad ones too; Sneak previews of Blair Witch, and BATTLEFIELD EARTH!! I did not leave the theater from the insult to film that was BATTLEFIELD EARTH!!! I'm not saying that 3K Miles is WORSE than Battlefield Earth, but for the first time in 22 years, I walked out of a movie it was so bad. I asked why we'd walk out after having endured the first hour plus of nonsense, but only 43 minutes had passed.

Fight Club (1999)

A knock-out! PERFECT!!!

[10/10 · 17 October 1999]

Like "Network" without a catch-phrase, Fight Club captures the anxieties (particularly of men) in todays world and takes the viewer on a journey from apathetic depression to life giving madness... It's use of fully visualizing elements of narrative commentary in drastic metaphor, as also seen in American Beauty, will become a staple of cinematic storytelling.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999)

So good too late!

[17 November 1998]

Darn this show! Why WHY did we get two (the first two) seasons of meaningless whining over "Bajor for Bajorin's" that drove me and many others away from this show and caused us to consider viewing it the way a house-cat considers walking across aluminum foil (a neat trick, lay four lengths of foil as a square with an opening for your cat to stand in and put him/her there, they wil NOT move!) Anyway, now this show has become good, VERY GOOD. Darn this show for becoming enjoyable, and bringing itself to an end at the same time. Now, I'm actually going to miss it.

Akira (1988)

It's all about the bike...

[10/10 · 17 September 1998]

I feel that "Akira" is one of the best films ever made. If it were a live action film, it would be without a doubt regarded as such. But "Akira" is a film that alienates some of its viewers with the very complexity that secures its greatness. Next time you watch Akira, try this; A) Forget it's an animated feature, look at the screen and imagine the same shots are live action, it's not hard to do and you'll suddenly see visuals that would have made "Titanic" look like a Kevin Costner postcard epic. B) Forget the sub-plots! The sub-plots in Akira are intricate and elaborate, but they are there to enhance subsequent viewings of the movie and provide the background to a masterpiece that upon each viewing you discover something new about the world you thought you knew so well... C) Focus on one thing, the red bike. I was with a group of my friends, and we had just finished viewing Akira and began talking about it. One friend was explaining how the movie was about Bhuddaism, another was explaining how the movie was a microscopic perspective of a macropolitical situation, others had similar interpretations... a couple people mentioned it was about the relationship between the alpha male and the omega male. From different perspectives, they were all right about what "Akira"'s about. Then I explained that at it's core, the movie is about the Bike, Kaneda's bike. The bike symbolizes everthing going on about the film, and how all the events are on a parallel course, oddly enough, with the physical condition of that bike. I could go on and on relating everything in the movie back to Kaneda's bike, but I digress. Just, next time, before you sit down to watch Akira, say to yourself; "It's all about the bike."